Merlin actor Colin Morgan and Shameless star David Threlfall land roles in new BBC crime dramas!

Fans of Merlin star Colin Morgan and Shameless veteran David Threlfall will no doubt be pleased to know that both actors are to star in new BBC crime dramas this year.

Beginning with Colin’s new role, he’ll guest star as Jimmy Minor in a BBC adaptation of John Banville’s hit novel Quirke alongside Gabriel Byrne in the title role as pathologist Garrett Quirke.

The series will feature three episodes – Colin will feature in the final installment – and in each, we’ll see Quirke investigating the mysterious deaths of people who end up on his table at the morgue.

In a press release about the drama last month, the BBC said of Byrne’s character, “[He’s] a charismatic loner whose job takes him into unexpected places as he uncovers the secrets of sudden death in 1950s Dublin…

“It’s a rich and smouldering world along whose smoky streets and damp alleys Quirke goes from bars that glimmer with peat fires and whiskey to elegant Dublin houses brimming with sexual tension. It’s a time full of mystery, secrets and intrigue.”

The three feature-length episodes each take their stories from different books in the series, ‘Christine Falls’ and ‘The Silver Swan’ by Andrew Davies and ‘Elegy for April’ by Conor McPherson. Commissioned by Danny Cohen, Controller BBC One and Ben Stephenson, Controller Drama Commissioning.

On now to David Threlfall’s new role, and he’ll star as a police officer Detective Inspector Len Harper in the thriller, What Remains, which again is set to air later this year.

The new crime thriller features four hour-long episodes and opens with the discovery of a decomposed body, which turns out to be the remains of Melissa Young, a 30-year-old single woman whose body lay undiscovered in the loft above her flat for two years after her death.

The drama will ask how is it that no one missed her, or even noticed that she was gone? And what does that say about the life she lived or the society we occupy? And is her killer still at large?

Here’s what the BBC says of the drama…

What Remains is a state-of-the-nation whodunit, in which the neighbouring residents are the chief suspects. Every flat has its own story to tell, in equal weight. In one way or another they all had some sort of connection with the victim.

By turns she was bullied by them, she was harassed, or she was simply ignored. She was secretly in love with one of them. And as we will ultimately discover, she was killed by someone very close to home.

And finally, here’s a look at what else is in store on the BBC in 2013…

Merlin actor Colin Morgan and Shameless star David Threlfall land roles in new BBC crime dramas!